Friday, 4 October 2013

Was he crazy? Peter Bernadone, feeling
ready to explode with anger, thought his son had gone absolutely stark raving
mad. Francis, for his part, thought his father was the one who was foolish. It
was time for father and son to walk different ways, however painful that might
be.

Peter, a wealthy cloth merchant,
had been a doting father. When Francis dreamed of knighthood, honour and glory,
Peter spent more than was reasonable as he twice equipped him for war. The
first time, after a battle against Assisi’s neighbouring city of Perugia, his
son had ended up languishing in prison until Peter ransomed him. The second
time, he simply gave up before reaching his destination and returned to Assisi
telling a story about a dream, a voice and shields. Instead of working for his
father, Francis spent long hours praying in a cave. That would not have been
too great a problem had not the young man exchanged his clothes with a beggar,
inviting ridicule from the townsfolk as he walked home through the streets of
Assisi.

Francis, the one-time leader of
Assisi youth, no longer saw the world through the materialistic eyes of Peter
Bernadone. God was asking something more. No longer looking for fame and
fortune, he believed that the crucified Jesus had spoken to him in the ruined
church of San Damiano. “Francis, rebuild my Church, which, as you can see, has
fallen into disrepair.” The young man took those words literally. He sold some of
his father’s bales of very expensive cloth for less than their worth and gave
the money to the priest at San Damiano.

Peter, exasperated beyond his
limits, dragged Francis to the courtyard outside the bishop’s palace, hoping to
settle matters once and for all. What happened next was beyond his worst
nightmares. Not only did his son return whatever money was in his possession.
In front of the curious crowd, gathered to see what would happen, Francis
removed his clothes and gave them to his father saying, “Listen to me, all of
you, and understand. Until now I have called Peter Bernadone my father. But,
because I have proposed to serve God, I return to him the money on account of
which he was so upset, and also all the clothing which is his, wanting to say
from now on: ‘Our Father who are in heaven ,’ and not ‘My father, Peter
Bernadone.’” The bishop covered the half-naked young man with his cloak and led
him away.

The film Brother Sun, Sister Moon, showed the unforgettable moment when the
young Francis of Assisi undressed before his heartbroken parents, the people
and the bishop of Assisi and walked into the sunshine of his new-found
vocation. Renouncing
his father’s hopes and dreams, in a single gesture, he abandoned the life of
wealth, comfort and fame that could have been his. Instead, he stepped out into
a new world of uncertainty, hardship, poverty and controversy. 800 years
later, the world still recalls and celebrates that pivotal moment which cost
‘not less than everything’. As far as we know, Peter and Francis were never
reconciled.

“Just after he was elected Pope I sent
him a letter on behalf of the diocese, reminding him that, as Bishop of Assisi,
I live in the place where Francis undressed before his speechless father, Peter
Bernadone,
eight centuries ago, to free himself entirely for God and for his brothers.”
Archbishop Domenico Sorrentino will welcome Pope Francis to the home of his
namesake on 4 October. “I took the liberty of saying to Francis: “So Father, it
would be great if among your many other commitments today, you came here at
least to say the Our Father, as Francis did 800 years ago.” The Pope’s answer
really threw me. He said: “The Our Father? But I want to talk about how the
Church should undress and somehow repeat that gesture Francis made and the
values inherent in this gesture.”

It is no coincidence that Pope Francis
should visit Assisi on the feast of his patron. At World Youth Day in Brazil,
he recalled, “Slowly but surely, Francis came to realise that it was not a
question of repairing a stone building, but about doing his part for the life
of the Church.” He told the young people that the Church they are called to
help build is not “a little chapel, which holds only a small group of persons”,
but rather a “church so large that it can hold all of humanity”. For Saint
Francis, and for all of us, what is important is “being at the service of the
Church, loving her and working to make the countenance of Christ shine ever
more brightly in her”.

The message which the Pope will
proclaim to the world is that of the importance of falling head-over-heels in
love with God. When St Francis returned his clothes to his father, Peter, he
gave himself totally, heart, body and soul, to God. Pope Francis will encourage
us to imitate the saint in discarding everything hindering our love affair with
God.

St Francis, in a unique way, knew
Jesus. His friend Bernard said of him that “he did not so much pray as become
himself a prayer”. Two years before his death on 3 October 1226, he was marked
with the Stigmata, the wounds of the crucified Jesus. As his Pope Francis recently
remarked at Mass, “It is not enough to know [Jesus] with the mind: it is a
step. However, it is necessary to get to know Jesus in dialogue with him,
talking with him in prayer, kneeling. If you do not pray, if you do not talk
with Jesus, you do not know him. You know things about Jesus, but you do not go
with that knowledge, which he gives your heart in prayer. Know Jesus with the
mind... know Jesus with the heart - in prayer, in dialogue with him... There is
a third way to know Jesus: it is by following him. Go with him, walk with
him... Here, then, is how you can really know Jesus: with these three languages
​​- of the mind, heart and action.”

Uniquely, St Francis, the ‘little
poor man of Assisi’, knew Jesus. He emptied himself so completely that God
filled him completely... Pope Francis will tell us to know Jesus by following
him, going with him and walking with him. He will encourage us to imitate St
Francis’ total openness and obedience to everything God asked of him. He will
invite us to unite with St Francis as he prayed, “My God and my all.” Perhaps
most importantly, he will stress the all-embracing love which welcomed the
leper at the roadside, treating him as a human being with his own unique
dignity. We will be once again challenged to focus on the needy and the
helpless, the small and insignificant in the eyes of the world. In the very
place where St Francis instructed his followers to greet people with the words,
“May God give you peace”, Pope Francis will commission us as instruments of
peace and love in our troubled world of today.

Tuesday, 1 October 2013

“St Therese unites simplicity
with love, to do with love and for love the small tasks of each day, to make
gestures of tenderness. Tenderness. How we forget this virtue!”

The world’s media made much of
the fact that when Pope Francis boarded the plane to Brazil and World Youth
Day, he carried his own briefcase. It contained a well-read, somewhat dog-eared
copy of a life of St Therese of Lisieux, to whom he has long had a special
devotion.

The people of Buenos Aires are
very familiar with the ‘special relationship’ between their former Cardinal
Bergoglio and the 24 year-old Carmelite nun who died on 30 September 1897. Modelling
his life on her ‘Little Way’, he also hung a picture of St Therese in his
private apartment. During his impromptu press conference on the return flight
to Rome, the Pope explained: “When I have a problem, I entrust it to her. I don’t ask her to resolve it, but to take it
into her hands and help me; almost always, I receive a rose as a sign.” He then
described an occasion when, having made an important decision about a difficult
question, he consigned the results to the care of St Therese. Not long afterwards, an unknown woman arrived
at the cathedral and presented him with three white roses, something he interpreted
as a sign that the saint was ‘on the job’.

As the Archbishop of Buenos
Aires, Cardinal Bergoglio’s visits to Rome always included a daily early
morning visit to the Franciscan church close to the Vatican. There, before the
statue of St Therese, he would pray and place his day under her guidance. “Do
not be afraid to depend solely on the tenderness of God as St Therese of
Lisieux did, who, for this reason, is a beloved daughter of the Blessed Mother
and a great missionary saint”, he recently declared.

Therese entered the Lisieux
Carmel in 1888, at the age of 15. When she died nine years later, her
association with the missions was such that, in 1926, Pope Pius XI declared her
to be the Patroness of the Indigenous Clergy and of the Society of St Peter the
Apostle (SPA). The following year, he made her Patroness of the Missions, “equal
to St. Francis Xavier, with all the rights and privileges that went with this
title.”

When Therese was 9 years old, she
joined the Holy Childhood (Mission Together) on 12 January 1882. How much of her
concern for the Church’s missions and missionaries arose from her membership of
the Society which, today, still cherishes its motto of ‘children helping
children’? How was it that a young nun, who, in one sense, achieved nothing
remarkable, could also represent a milestone in the history of the Church?

Pope Francis suggested an answer:
“St Therese writes, ‘Charity gave me the key to my vocation. I understood that
if the Church had a body, composed of different members, it wouldn't lack the
most necessary, the most noble of all of them. I understood that the Church had
a heart and that heart was beating with love.’"

Love is vital in today’s secular
and frequently violent society: “Love is getting closer to others, listening to
others, discovering the presence of God in others, to have sympathy, that is,
to have sincere feelings towards others. Therese did this her entire life
without drawing attention [to herself]. For this reason, she could exclaim, ‘Jesus,
my love! At the end I have found my vocation. My vocation is love.’"

St Francis of Assisi and St
Therese shared a common passion for simplicity and littleness in their
relationship with God and those around them. These same two qualities
characterise the pontificate of Pope Francis.
“Simplicity is a gift St Therese cultivated during her life and
considered fundamental to her spiritual legacy. Simplicity has a delightful
aspect to it. It has to do with going unnoticed, making oneself little in the
eyes of others, not wanting to take pride in oneself, not wanting to draw
attention [to oneself]. The essence, the heart of simplicity is to know one's
littleness before God.”

It is that consciousness of his
‘littleness’ before God which gives the Jesuit Pope the freedom to be himself before
the world. He does not put on an act when he kisses babies, embraces the
disabled, cracks a joke or speaks of God in words which are so simple and
heartfelt that nobody doubts his sincerity. With Pope Francis, ‘what you see is
what you get’. His authenticity before the world merely expresses his openness,
simplicity and honesty before God.

“Simple souls do not need to use
complicated ways in life: they show themselves as they are, and this is their
charm and their virtue. The simple soul has one concern: to please God. God is
the priority in the life of the simple soul… The simple soul is like a child in
the hands of God” – and therein lies the crux of the matter. Pope Francis, in
search of an ever simpler and humbler relationship with God is also simple and
humble in his relationship with others. He cannot be complicated and entangled
in bureaucratic clutter because it would merely distract him from all that is
truly important, namely the overwhelming drive to ‘find God in all things’.

Within the space of a few months,
the Jesuit who is inspired by St Ignatius Loyola, St Francis of Assisi and St
Therese of Lisieux, has truly shown himself to be the ‘man for others’ which is
the goal of every Jesuit. In their own unique ways, the three saints were all missionaries
and so Pope Francis is also called to be ‘the Pope of mission’. “People today
certainly need words, but most of all they need us to bear witness to the mercy
and tenderness of the Lord, which warms the heart, rekindles hope, and attracts
people towards the good.”

Yet the vocation to be missionary
in outlook and lifestyle is not pursued in isolation. At his WYD Mass for the
young people assembled on Copacabana Beach, the Pope proclaimed the message he
had already taught through his actions. "Evangelizing means bearing
personal witness to the love of God: it is overcoming our selfishness. It is
serving by bending down to wash the feet of our brethren, as Jesus did."

As he told a gathering of
seminarians and religious novices: "Jesus is not an isolated missionary,
does not want to fulfil his mission alone... he immediately forms a community
of disciples, which is a missionary community. The purpose is not to socialize,
to spend time together. No, the purpose is to proclaim the Kingdom of God, and
this is urgent! There is no time to waste in small talk, no need to wait for
the consent of all – there is need only of going out and proclaiming."

Pope
Francis beautifully expressed his life and mission in saying, “We have in our
hands a way to become humble, to show ourselves needful before God and put our
needs in his hands - just like Therese - and this makes us better brothers [and
sisters] towards others.”

Monday, 30 September 2013

“It’s alright. You are safe. They
have freedom of speech here.” Those wonderful words broke into my silent
irritation at the sight of the mess and the noise outside Parliament the
evening before the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton. One of the
two young men walking behind me was visibly scared when he saw the
demonstration about Britain’s continued presence in Afghanistan. His friend’s
words, however, made me want to turn cartwheels for joy.

In spite of the untidiness and
frequent disconnect, in spite of sometimes being regaled with sights and sounds
we would rather not see, we have a freedom which is unmatched in many other
countries across the world. We are not expected to ‘toe the party line’ and
fall in unanimously behind every thought word and deed of David Cameron or any
other Prime Minister. The Opposition, or
to give it its full title, the Loyal Opposition, does not expect to be silenced
for objecting to whatever words of wisdom (real or apparent) which might come
from across the other side of the Parliamentary chamber. We might have a
superabundance of CCTV cameras positioned in every conceivable place, but their
aim is not to spy on the legitimate activities of the law abiding general
public.

It might seem unimportant, but a
small, tangible sign of our democracy-in-action happened when, over the August
Bank Holiday weekend, the poorly-regulated noise from a nearby fairground and
an almost equally close music festival became unbearably loud. Personal
complaints had no effect. Eventually, late at night and trapped indoors by the
inescapable nuisance of window-rattling sound, I e-mailed my local MP. Within
fifteen minutes of her office opening on the Tuesday morning, a response
appeared in my Inbox. Since then, I have had two letters detailing the progress
of the negotiations between the two adjacent local Councils. I am impressed! As
with any human institution, nothing is perfect, but we do have a system which,
by and large, works.

The Chief Justice of India P.
Sathasivam, recently remarked that, “All the major legal systems of the world...
recognise that the expression of facts and ideas and opinions can never be
absolutely free. Words can do damage in many ways even if they are true, such
as by prejudicing a trial or by inciting communal hatred... ‘free speech is
what is left of speech after the law has had its say.’”

We have recently seen a very good
example of that! A prospective demonstrator from the English Defence League
argued his case for free speech and democracy – but the police still wisely
moved the demonstration from the heavily Islamic and multicultural area of
London’s Tower Hamlets to an area which could be more easily controlled. The
man did not lose his right to protest, but neither did the residents of Tower
Hamlets lose their right to safety.

The media play a huge part in,
not only exercising our right to free speech, but also in channelling its
exercise. How often do we know, for instance, more about the misbehaviour of
celebrities than about their words and deeds which are to be highly commended?
How often are so-called leaders of public opinion celebrities who have perhaps
never been encouraged to think more deeply than their next photoshoot?

It is very noticeable that, at
present, Pope Francis is extremely popular with the world’s media, which seems
to hang on his every word regardless of the journalist’s agreement or
disagreement with its content. So it is that many of the same stories, quotes
and images are available time and again in both the religious and the secular
press. It is not a problem: suddenly the world seems to be waking up to the
fact that the Church has something to say which might be worth hearing and
which might offer hope in a frequently troubled and violent scenario. Some have
not noticed that the basic content of the Pope’s message happens to be the same
as his predecessors over the course of the last 2,000 years. He just happens to
say things differently, in catchy soundbites and with brilliantly personal,
genuine and meaningfully spontaneous gestures. He has a gift which, surely,
must be the envy of opinion leaders across the world. How many other Heads of
State, for instance, could call for a day of fasting and prayer for peace in
Syria and be assured that millions will hear and respond, regardless of their
nationality, language, gender, colour and creed?

Certainly, Pope Francis has a
delightful talent for saying the most profound things in words which anybody
can understand. Perhaps that is one reason why the media are so eager to listen
to what he will say next, knowing that it will probably be unexpected and will
probably be in words which journalists and writers will wish they had thought
of for their own use.

Take, for instance, the
forthcoming visit to Assisi in order to celebrate the feast of St Francis on 4
October. The Bishop of Assisi, Domenico Sorrentino, said, “Just after he was
elected Pope I sent him a letter on behalf of the diocese, reminding him that
as Bishop of Assisi I live in the place where Francis undressed before his
speechless father, Pietro di Bernardone, eight centuries ago, to free himself
entirely for God and for his brothers... I remember him being really touched by
this. So I took the liberty to say to Pope Francis: ‘So, Father, it would be
great if among your many other commitments today, you came here at least to say
the Our Father, as Francis did 800
years ago.’ The Pope’s answer really threw me. He said: ‘The Our Father? But I want to talk about how
the Church should undress and somehow repeat that gesture Francis made and the
values inherent in this gesture.’” What a call to simplicity – and yet
unselfconsciously couched in words which really did hit the headlines!

Yet what happens when people have
no chance of obtaining the rightful publicity that they need for justice and
for peace? Pope Francis is trying to be ‘the voice of the voiceless’, but what
about local advocates? Where is their voice heard? Where are they allowed to be
heard? Why do some die before anybody pays attention? Take, for example, 4
year-old Daniel Pelka whose mother and stepfather recently beat and starved to
death. It is only after, and as a result of, his death that things will change.
Banner headlines across media outlets proclaimed the cruelty and injustice of
his treatment – but in a country which is proud of its record for freedom of
speech, why did we only become aware of Daniel after the event? How many others
will never be heard?

It takes considerable effort,
courage and time to sensitize the world to justice and peace. Even the
incredible lead offered by Pope Francis will not change things overnight.
Syria, in spite of a day of fasting and prayer, will be a problem today and
tomorrow. Yet we could listen to the words of St Francis, who said, “Let us
begin, for until now we have done nothing.” We could make a start. Our free
speech is also a universal call to justice and peace.

Tuesday, 24 September 2013

Jane was unique! Nobody knew her
age or where she lived. Everybody said the same thing: “She has a sister
somewhere”, but push for more information and there was none. Yet Jane was
everywhere, her small, lean frame, huge grin and battered saucepan in every
place where she should not have been. She was ageless. Jane could have been 60
or 160 years old. There was no way of telling.

There were two responses to Jane:
most people tried to be invisible. Others attempted to become larger than life
in the hopes of driving her away. It didn’t work. Hide in the house, and her
big grin and friendly wave appeared at the window. Shut the door? She refused
to go away, trapping the householders until they gave in and dealt with her
needs.

Did Jane’s psychiatric condition
have a name? Probably, but in the remote Zambian village of Lubwe,
a diagnosis made little difference. There were no medicines for her unless she
was sick. Wherever Jane should not have been, she was, and where she should
have been, she wasn’t.

Jane’s ‘normal’ behaviour did not
fit into most people’s scheme of things. She was a crafty old so-and-so. Many
housewives complained of their unexpected visitor. “I put the food on the
table, went into the next room for a few seconds and when I came out, she was
in the house, beside the table and had eaten the whole lot!”

Leave a door or a gate only
slightly ajar. Somehow, Jane would squeeze through the gap, into the house and
into the kitchen, only agreeing to leave when her ancient, blackened saucepan
could hold no more food… and then she would select a banana (always the best!) on
her way out.

Nothing was safe when Jane was
around. Sister Jean had long given up looking for her missing dress when, one
morning, Jane arrived wearing it. By that stage the dress, stolen from the
washing-line, was filthy and barely recognisable. Sister Jean did not ask for
its return!

Jane’s nuisance-value was
enormous. Yet there was something endearing about her grin and peculiar run as
she escaped from her latest venture. Illness never troubled her. She had no
worries, was never hungry and never put on weight. It was useless to scold her
because Jane merely grinned and laughed aloud as she walked away, leaving the
frustrated individual even more frustrated… and minus whatever it was that Jane
had stolen in the first place.

Jane’s good health ensured she
would probably outlive most people and she was probably one of the happiest
women that most of us had ever seen. Someone wryly remarked that she would probably
succeed in driving everybody else to an early grave!

Every so often, Jane vanished for
a few days. People breathed a sigh of relief and then, just as they were
enjoying their peace and quiet, she would reappear and the whole sequence would
start all over again. Yet however much she exasperated people, nobody lifted a
finger to hurt her. She was a fact of life.

One of Jane’s outstanding
characteristics was that she refused to be ignored and, even if her behaviour
was always directed by self-interest, nobody escaped her attention. In her own
peculiar way, she was a community builder, partly because she demanded help
from others and partly because, when she had temporarily disappeared from
sight, people came together to talk about her latest escapades.

Jane was totally free. She
belonged to everyone and to no-one. She received care from everybody, asked or
unasked, but at the same time, nobody cared. They responded to her immediate
request and then happily escorted her from their premises. She was unrestrained,
walking and doing wherever she wanted. There was no local police station at
that time, so her thefts were unchallenged, and, in any case, what court could
have produced a lasting effect for her betterment?

Contrast Jane with some of those
whom our ‘enlightened society’ allows to have ‘care in the community’. What
would happen if they were to wander in and out of people’s houses, helping
themselves to food or to the occasional item of clothing as it hung on the
washing line? What would happen if someone like Jane were to stand outside a
house, banging on the door or the window until the householder supplied food?

My memory of Jane is of an
elderly woman who laughed and never seemed to mind that she had no home. How
many of the homeless men and women in our streets are smiling and enjoying
life?

Jane’s conversation was not very
sensible. A sentence always ended with a toothy grin and a burst of laughter. There
was not an atom of malice in her, a small child within the body of an adult. So
it was that even her greatest misdemeanours were never evil. Mischief-maker
that she was, being caught out and yet still escaping with her ill-gotten goods
was all part of the game.

…but doesn’t it also say
something about the innate goodness of the village that, with kindness and a
great deal of patient forgiveness, accepted Jane as part of its daily life? Her
counterpart in Britain
would probably receive some form of medical diagnosis, treatment and perhaps at
least an ASBO or two. Social Services might grudgingly accept her onto their
books but would find great difficulty in placing someone who belonged
everywhere and nowhere. Restrain her and Jane’s laughter would turn to tears.
She was the child of whom Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me for
of such is the kingdom
of Heaven”.

Not long ago, four celebrities
chose to become homeless for several days, their paths carefully monitored by
television cameras and members of an organisation which cares for the destitute
around London.
None found it a pleasant experience. One man described his unhappiness as he
found himself lonely and ‘invisible’, with everybody passing him by, looking
past him lest he ask for money. They were wrong on a few counts: he is a Sikh
and Sikhs don’t beg, but also they were, unconsciously, part of a real life
re-enactment of the parable of the Good Samaritan.

I once found myself in
conversation with an elderly man. “I’ve actually got a home”, he said, “but my
wife died and I’m so lonely that I come down to the shelter every day, to talk
to the tramps and then, at the end of the day, I go home again.”

Then there was a tramp, in
hospital with severe cellulitis on both legs. “When my wife died, I sold the
house and took to the road”, he declared. “I have two sisters, one in Kent and the
other in the West Country. I spend my days walking between their houses. When I
reach the home of one sister, I stay for a few days and then start walking
again until I reach the other.”

Jane was unique: she was
homeless, happy and constantly receiving the care of the community, even if
reluctantly and almost blackmailed into responding to her needs.

Some people don’t even receive a
greeting.

Jesus said, “As long as you did
it to the least of my little ones, you did it to me”.

Monday, 23 September 2013

“The ship was sinking but the priests
refused to go into the lifeboats. They stayed on the deck, hearing Confessions,
helping passengers to climb into the boats and offering whatever support they
could until the Titanic finally sank.”

This was a lovely and unexpected tribute
from a member of the Titanic Society as he gave a slideshow and talk in
Liverpool’s Maritime Museum. Searching through the list of victims of the
Titanic, I found the names of several men described as ‘priest/minister’ and
one woman, described as ‘missionary’. Of these, three were Catholic priests.
All put the safety of others before their own.

The woman, Miss Annie Clemmer Funk, aged
38, went so far as to climb out of the lifeboat in order to allow someone else
to take her place! She was the first female Mennonite missionary to India,
where she learned Hindi and opened a one-room school for girls. Annie had
received a telegram from her father, informing her of her mother’s illness and
summoning her home to America. Her memorial records:

'On the night of the
sinking, she was asleep in her cabin, was woken by the stewards, dressed and
went on deck. She was about to enter a lifeboat, when a woman came from behind,
pushing her aside by calling: "My children, My children". The last
seat was gone, Annie had to step back. She died in the sinking. Her body, if
recovered, was never identified.'

Rev Charles Leonard Kirkland, aged 57, was
a Scots Presbyterian minister from Glasgow, Scotland, travelling to visit his
sister in Saskatchewan. Kirkland died in the sinking. His body, if recovered,
was never identified.

Rev William Lahtinen, aged 30, and his wife
Anna died together, their bodies never recovered. When the Titanic collided
with the iceberg, Anna initially boarded a lifeboat, but then decided to stay
with her husband. Their friend was rescued and later reported that Anna had
appeared very nervous, whilst William calmly smoked a cigar.

Rev John Harper, aged 39 and a Baptist
minister, was travelling with his daughter Nina. Hours before the collision, he
and a friend stood on deck admiring the sunset. "It will be beautiful in
the morning," he remarked heading to his cabin. After the collision,
Harper awakened his daughter, picked her up and wrapped her in a blanket before
carrying her up to A deck. There he kissed her goodbye and handed her to a
crewman, who put her into lifeboat 11. Rev Harper went down with the ship.

"On the
evening of 14 April, Rev Carter presided over a hymn service for about a
hundred passengers in the second class dining saloon, he preceded each hymn
with a history of the hymn and its author… Marion Wright sang a solo of Lead
Kindly Light. Among the other hymns sung were Eternal Father, Strong to
Save (also known as For those in peril on the Sea), On the
Resurrection Morning, There is a Green Hill Far Away ... The final
hymn was Now the Day is Over. Around ten o'clock the steward began to
lay out coffee and refreshments and Rev Carter drew the proceedings to a close
by thanking the Purser for the use of the Saloon and added that the ship was
unusually steady and how everyone was looking forward to their arrival in New
York. 'It is' he said 'the first time that there have been hymns sung on this
boat on a Sunday evening, but we trust and pray it won't be the last.'

But it was and Rev
and Mrs Carter died in the sinking. Their bodies, if recovered, were never
identified."

Rev Robert James Bateman was a Baptist
Minister, married with seven children.
As he helped his sister-in-law into lifeboat 10, he said, “If I don't
meet you again in this world, I will in the next.” He gave her his necktie as a
keepsake. She later reported:

"Brother
forced me into the last boat, saying he would follow me later. I believe I was
the last person to leave the ship. Brother threw his overcoat over my shoulders
as the boat was being lowered away and as we neared the water, he took his
black necktie and threw it to me with the words, 'Goodbye, God bless you!"

Three
Catholic priests were amongst the victims of the Titanic: Frs Peruschitz,
Montvila and Fr Byles. A survivor recalled that they offered daily Mass on the
voyage. Another remembered seeing them together in the library:

“In the middle of the room are two Catholic priests, one
quietly reading... the other, dark, bearded, with a broad-brimmed hat, talking
earnestly to a friend in German and evidently explaining some verse in the open
Bible before him...”

Another
eyewitness report possibly refers to Frs Peruschitz and Montvila as Fr Byles
was engaged in guiding steerage passengers towards the deck:

"When all the excitement became fearful all the
Catholics on board desired the assistance of priests with the greatest fervour.
Both priests aroused those condemned to die to say acts of contrition and
prepare themselves to meet the face of God. They led the rosary and others
answered. The sound of the recitation irritated a few passengers, and some
ridiculed those who prayed and started a ring dance around them. The two
priests were engaged continuously giving general absolution to those who were
about to die. Those entering the lifeboats were consoled with moving words.
Some women refused to be separated from their husbands, preferring to die with
them. Finally, when no more women were near, some men were allowed into the
boats. Father Peruschitz was offered a place which he declined."

Fr
Josef Peruschitz OSB, aged 41, was a German Benedictine monk who taught
mathematics, music, physical education and shorthand in the scool attached to
his monastery in Scheyern in the Archdiocese of Munich-Freising. In 1912, he
was appointed Principal of the Benedictine school in Minnesota, where he was
travelling on a £13 second class passenger ticket when the iceberg struck the
Titanic. He died in the sinking. His body, if recovered, was never identified.

Fr
Juozas Montvila, a Lithuanian, was only 27 when the Czarist regime forbade him
to practise his ministry. He decided, therefore, to emigrate to the United
States. After the collision, eyewitnesses reported that the "...young
Lithuanian priest, Juozas Montvila,
served his calling to the very end" by refusing a place on one of the lifeboats,
“choosing to administer his priestly duties and offering solace to his fellow
travellers.”

Montvila’s
body, if recovered, was never identified. Revered as a hero and martyr in
Lithuania, he is currently under consideration for canonization.

Most
seems to be known of Fr Thomas Roussel Davids Byles, a 42 year-old
Yorkshireman, a convert and the eldest of seven children, who eventually became
the parish priest in Chipping Ongar, Essex. A member of the Catholic Missionary
Society, Fr Byles was travelling to America for his brother’s wedding. The
Titanic held insufficient lifeboats for the number of passengers on board.
Frighteningly, there was no provision for steerage passengers, who were
expected to fend for themselves. Equally scaring, apparently when bodies were
recovered, because of the limited amount of space on board the rescue vessels,
those of steerage passengers were merely weighted down with chains! Hence Fr
Byles’ assistance of third class passengers stands out as a further act of
heroic generosity.

Fr
Scott Archer notes in his biography of the priest:

Of the very few
passengers willing to brave the cold, Father Byles had been reciting the Breviarium Romanum, fully dressed in his
priestly garb, while walking back and forth on the upper deck at the moment the
Titanic struck the iceberg. He acted bravely in his capacity as a spiritual
leader of men. Descending to the third class and calming the people, Father
Byles gave them his priestly blessing and began to hear confessions; after
which, he began the recitation of the Rosary. He then led the third class
passengers up to the boat deck and helped load the lifeboats. He gave words of
consolation and encouragement to the woman and children as they got into the
boats. As the danger became even more apparent, he went about hearing more
confessions and giving absolution. By all accounts, Father Byles was twice
offered a seat in a lifeboat but refused. After the last lifeboat was gone, he
went to the after end of the boat deck and led the recitation of the Rosary for
a large group kneeling around him of those who were not able to find room in
the boats. Father Byles also exhorted the people to prepare to meet God. As
2:20 a.m. approached, and the stern rose higher and higher out of the sea,
Father Byles led the more than one hundred people kneeling before him in the
Act of Contrition and gave them general absolution.

Other reports add that Fr Byles stayed
alive in the icy ocean until shortly before the arrival of the Carpathia,
swimming between the people floating in the water and hanging on to wreckage,
still offering support and the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Eventually, through
sheer exhaustion, he died.

Sunday, 22 September 2013

The rose petals floated away from
the ferry on the River Mersey in a beautiful, poignant and deeply precious
moment of remembering deceased family members and friends. A nearby passenger
sobbed quietly into the enfolding arms of her male companion. Everybody stood
or sat in silence, busy with personal thoughts and memories as the chaplain
said a brief prayer, the signal for the participants on this special Jospice-arranged
cruise to scatter the rose petals onto the waves.

My own ‘special people’ featured
my late grandfather, Henry Stuart Knight, whom I never met. His long years in
the Merchant Navy and, subsequently, as the Captain of the Duchess of Bedford
and the Empress of France spanned two world wars. I remembered my 19 year-old
Uncle Frank, shot down into the North Sea as he and his crew returned from
Germany a few months before the end of WWII. There were also the two crew
members of the Royal Daffodil, to me, forever anonymous, but who saved the crowded
ferry, its crew and passengers from a mine which had come adrift and floated
between Liverpool’s Pier Head and Wallasey on the opposite bank. Years later,
on realising the nature of the large ball with shiny spikes which, at 5 years
old, I thought exciting and beautiful, I understood with a gasp why the adults
stood in silence, watching the two sailors risk their lives to save us.
Something uniquely valued and meaningful tempered the joy of an afternoon on
one of the famous ‘Ferries across the Mersey’.

That is why, when Pope Francis
visits the Sardinian town of Cagliari, he will tap into a 700 year-old
tradition of the perils of the sea and care for all those who sail on her, in
war and in peace. Visiting the shrine of Our Lady of Cagliari, also known as
Our Lady of Bonaria (good air), he will inevitably pray for all those who
travel by sea.

Every year, on 25 April, the
statue of Our Lady is taken from the cathedral in Cagliari, becoming the
honoured passenger on a similar memorial cruise. In the midst of the noisy
enjoyment of an Italian festa, there
are also the sombre moments as people remember their loved ones and throw their
flowers onto the waves. The difference is that the people of Cagliari recall,
not only those who have died, but also those who have been saved from the sea.

According to local tradition, on
25 March 1370, the feast of the Annunciation, a terrible storm overtook a
Catalonian ship travelling towards Italy from Spain. In danger of sinking, its
desperate captain instructed his crew to jettison the cargo, hoping that, by
lightening the weight of the vessel, they would be able to survive the tempest.
There seemed to be no improvement and the danger only intensified. He ordered
the last remaining large crate to be thrown overboard. Immediately it touched
the water, the storm ceased! Also, to the surprise of the crew, despite its
great weight, the crate floated, rather than sank.

With the danger over, the sailors
retrieved as much of the cargo as they could, but were unable to bring the large
crate back on board. Eventually the captain decided to cut his losses and
abandon it, returning to his original route towards the Italian mainland.

The crate finally washed up on
the Sardinian shore, close to Cagliari
and not far from the local church. Local inhabitants, hoping for profitable
beachcombing after the storm, came down to the shore. The large chest attracted
their attention, but it was far too heavy to lift. Local tradition relates that
a child suggested that the priests might know how to move the box and its
contents away from the beach, where it was threatened by the incoming tide.

The priests, Mercedarian friars, committed
to the redemption of slaves, apparently succeeded in lifting the chest without
any difficulty. On opening it, they discovered a wooden statue of Our Lady, holding
the Infant on her left arm. Her right hand carried a lighted taper in a
boat-shaped holder. Jesus, the world in
his left hand, extended his right hand towards the boat and candle.

Perhaps inevitably, sailors began
to look on Our Lady of Bonaria (good wind - ‘bon aria’) as their patroness.
After all, she had saved the lives of the crew of the ship in which her statue
had reached Cagliari. Several centuries of stories of her intervention led Pope
Pius X to proclaim her as Patroness of Sardinia on 13 September 1907. Pope Paul
VI visited the shrine on 24 April 1970, whilst Pope Benedict travelled to Cagliari and to the
shrine of Our Lady of Bonaria on 7 September 2008. During his time in front of
the shrine, he told the assembled crowd:

“Mary is the
harbour, refuge and protection for the Sardinian people who have within them
the strength of oak. When the storm has passed the oak stands strong; fires
rage and it sends out new shoots; the drought comes and it wins through once
again. Let us therefore renew joyfully our consecration to such a caring
Mother. I am sure that generations of Sardinians will continue to climb to the
Shrine at Bonaria to invoke the Virgin's protection. Those who entrust
themselves to Our Lady of Bonaria, a merciful and powerful Mother, will never
be disappointed.”

The Cagliari statue of Our Lady
of Bonaria is one of a group of so-called Taper shrines, one of which, Our Lady
of Cardigan in the diocese of Menevia, dates back to the 12th
century. In the period around the date when the Catalonian ship ran into
difficulties offshore from Cagliari,
their sailors and merchants thronged British waters. Sadly, in 1538, the
dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII led to the destruction of the
original shrine and statue of Our Lady of Cardigan.

There is also a special link
between the Cagliari devotion to Our Lady of Bonaria and the Pope’s former
diocese of Buenos Aries. Spanish navigator, Pedro de Mendoza, who founded Buenos
Aires on 2 February 1536, dedicated the
city to Our Lady of the Buon Ayre (Fair Winds), keeping a promise which he had
made to the Patroness of Navigators. Later on, when the city was resettled by
his countryman and fellow Conquistador, Juan de Garay, in 1580, there was a
problem and a compromise became necessary. As Pope Francis explained, “The
founders who established Buenos Aires wished to name it the city of Holy Spirit,
but the sailors, who had brought [them] there, were Sardinians and wanted it to
be named the city of the Madonna of the Bonaria.” He continued: “There was a
dispute between them and in the end they negotiated and [...] the name of the
city is very long; it is called the Ciudad
de la Santísima Trinidad y Puerto de Santa María del Buen Aire (City of the
Holy Trinity and Port of Saint Mary of Buen Aire), but it was so long that only
the last words remained: Buon Aria, Buenos Aires, but it is due to your
Madonna.”

It is no coincidence that the
Pope from Buenos Aires in making the sanctuary of Our Lady of Bonaria his port
of call!

Wednesday, 18 September 2013

Experts say that the best way in
which to give God a good laugh is to tell him our plans. Perhaps Fr Murray Bodo
should have known better than to think he knew his future path after
ordination: as a Franciscan, life would inevitably be surprising. If anything,
to be a Franciscan means being pre-programmed for the unforeseen ideas of the
God of the Unexpected!

“I never
expected to spend my life teaching, writing and leading pilgrimages to Assisi.
I had thought that, after ordination I would be working with the Navajo people.
Life just did not turn out as I had predicted.”

Fr Murray Bodo OFM, Franciscan
friar, writer, poet and author of the modern spiritual classic, Francis: The Journey and the Dream, laughed.
“I grew up in Gallup, New Mexico quite close to the Navajo Reservation, and my
father worked for a while on the Reservation.
We had friends there and knew two of the Franciscan missionaries. I was also inspired by Fr Berard Haile, who
put the Navajo language into writing, inventing a morphology to visually
transmit the sound of the Navajo words.
I wanted to be a Navajo Missionary like them.”

The contrast could scarcely be
greater. Thousands of people across the world, for more than 40 years, have
associated the name of Fr Murray with teaching, writing, poetry and Franciscan
study pilgrimages. How did the change of plans come about?

“I ended up
teaching literature and writing at St Francis High School Seminary in
Cincinnati, Ohio, right after my ordination. I was asked if I would replace the
friar who taught English and who was terminally ill. I was assured it would
only be for one year. Twelve years later
I was moved from the High School Seminary to our Franciscan college as Professor
of English there until it closed two years later. I then taught English at other universities
and colleges, having, by that time, a Master's Degree and a Doctorate in
English. I was writing poetry seriously
from my undergraduate studies through my theological studies before ordination.”

The name of Fr Murray Bodo OFM
conjures up an image of a gently-spoken American Franciscan, whose book, Francis: The Journey and the Dream, has
sold more than 200,000 copies and has been translated into French, Spanish,
Danish, Japanese, Chinese, Italian, and Maltese. With more than 30 books in
print, several of them collections of his own poetry, it is not surprising that
he comments, “Writing is something I just have to do to be me. It’s intimately
a part of my identity.”

Fr Murray did not simply wake up
one morning and decide to write Francis:
The Journey and the Dream, a poetic, story-like version of the life of St
Francis of Assisi. He points out, “I was asked to write the book by Father
Jeremy Harrington, OFM, who was at that time the editor and publisher of St.
Anthony Messenger Press. The thought was
that there would then be a book on St. Francis released at the same time as
Franco Zeffirelli's film, Brother Sun,
Sister Moon. I was sent to Assisi
for three months to work on the book. It
is a mystery to me why it has been so popular and been translated into so many
languages. St Francis must have been
using me as an instrument to speak to others in a way that touched a chord in
people all over the world.”

Forty years later, Fr Murray
wrote Francis and Jesus, another
small book and one which is, in many ways, a continuation of Francis: The Journey and the Dream. What
inspired him to write Francis and Jesus?
Why is it so different from its predecessor?

“I wrote this
book because I found the writing voice I had used in The Journey and the Dream. I
was working with a scene from Francis's life, and suddenly that voice was there
again, and I just went with it to see where it would lead me. The book is different because I was forty
years older and had spent those years working three months of the year in
Assisi and doing research on Francis's life.
I had also grown in my understanding of the inner life and the
Franciscan charism.”

Many insights enshrined within Francis and Jesus are the result of long
years of reflection and life experience.

“The book, Francis and Jesus, grew out of the
silence that lies between the lines of what St Francis said about himself and
what was said about him by the early biographers. He says so little about himself and only the
imagination, I found, could give me access to what was inside the lines, what
was contained in the silence, in the unsaid, as it were. As with my first book, Francis: The Journey and the Dream, so, too, in this book, when I
began to explore the inner silence for what was inaccessible to me
historically, St Francis began to emerge on the page as a developing character
who had feelings and thoughts, dreams and aspirations, discouragements and
disappointments, fears and triumphs, sadness and joy. And above all he emerged as someone deeply in
love with God whom he saw concretely in Jesus Christ. Jesus was for Francis, in an extraordinarily
powerful way, the Incarnation of God, a God whose love was so great that
Francis could do nothing but return that love with his own love. Jesus was his all, his everything. I let
Francis lead me on the page, let him speak and think and lead me where he
would.”

St Francis was the first recorded
person in history to receive the Stigmata, the wounds of the crucified Jesus in
his hands, feet and side. This happened on the mountain of La Verna, a mountain
in northern Italy, given to Francis and his followers as a place for prayer and
solitude. Despite the passage of 800 years and countless thousands of pilgrim
feet, its forest-clad rocky slopes, sometimes ghostly with mist still seem
pristine and untouched.

Francis received the Stigmata on
17 September 1224, two years before his death. Since then, Franciscans across
the world have celebrated the memory of that unique event. Do his Stigmata have
any relevant meaning for us today? Fr Murray is convinced that it has.

“I believe it
has great relevance because it seals St Francis and his way of living the
Gospel with the sign of the Crucified Christ in whose footsteps Francis had
walked all his life following his conversion as a young man in his early
20s. The Stigmata is a sign of God's
approval of a way of living and of St Francis himself. It says that in Francis we see an image of
God's own son, Jesus. In fact, in the
Middle Ages St Francis was called, Alter
Christus, Another Christ, and also, Speculum
Christi, A Mirror of Christ.”

One thing is certain: on 17
September, celebrated as the feast of the Stigmata of St Francis, Fr Murray
Bodo will simply be one of many thousands worldwide to thank God for ‘the
little poor man of Assisi.’ Their thanksgiving, however, will be deeper and
more real because of Fr Murray’s writings.

Monday, 16 September 2013

“He drives in the Ford Focus, and his car
number is SCV 00919, instead of SCV 1, and is carrying his own mitre as he
walks to the church!! His mitre is not even in an expensive case: it’s only in
a cloth bag.”

On the Feast of St Augustine, Pope Francis
travelled to the Rome church called after the saint who once prayed, “Lord,
give me chastity – but not yet.” His intention was to preside at the opening Mass
of the Augustinian’s General Chapter. He also touched at least one priest’s heart,
however, by his simple gesture of carrying his own mitre rather than having
someone else carry it for him. Neither did the Pope travel in one of the
luxurious papal limousines. Instead, he used the navy-blue Ford Focus which
has, within the space of a few weeks, become his hallmark mode of transport.
Heads of State (and even cardinals!!) might opt for the more spectacular and
vastly more expensive Mercedes, but the Holy Father deliberately selected one
of the least spectacular cars of the Vatican fleet – and moved at least one
person by his purposeful sign of his ‘option for the poor’.

But Pope Francis has touched many hearts, one at
a time, since his election. His former newspaper vendor and shoe repairer in
Buenos Aires will surely treasure their papal phone call for the rest of their
lives. No doubt their families, friends and customers (as well as the press)
will be told and re-told of how he rang them to cancel his newspapers and to
ask that the pair of shoes which he had left for mending be sent to the
Vatican! Similarly, the hotel desk clerk who received the payment for Cardinal
Bergoglio’s stay directly from the hands (and wallet) of Pope Francis will
cherish a unique moment which will stay with him for ever.

There have also been other occasions when the
Jesuit Pope has imitated St Ignatius of Loyola, who worked to win “one soul at
a time”. Likewise, he has followed the path of St Francis of Assisi, not only
in remembering the poor, but also in “speaking to a multitude with as much
attention as if he spoke to a single person, and to a single person with as
much care as if he spoke to a multitude.” Within the last few weeks, stories
have emerged to show a man of outstanding thoughtfulness, kindness and
sincerity.

At the beginning of July, thieves shot and killed
petrol pump attendant, 51 year-old Andrea Ferri during a robbery at a filling
station in the Italian coastal town of Pesaro. Andrea’s younger brother, Michele,
wrote to the Pope, telling him of his inability to forgive the killers. Imagine
the unexpected comfort and support that Francis gave to the family when he
phoned Andrea’s mother and brother, to pass on his condolences. "He told me he cried when he read the letter I wrote to him", Michele said afterwards.

The following month, Stefano Cabizza, a
19-year-old engineering student from Padova, attended the Pope’s Mass on the
Feast of the Assumption on 15 August, carrying a letter he had written to the
Holy Father. Handing it to a passing cardinal with the request that it would be
given to its intended recipient, Stefano expected nothing more. To his
amazement, three days later, Pope Francis rang Cabizza’s home, found him out,
phoned a second time and chatted to the student for a full eight minutes!

Those are two families which have been changed
for ever by a single unexpected phone call. Touchingly and unforgettably, there
was no formality about the greetings. "Ciao, Michele. It's Pope
Francis." The word ’ciao’ is so friendly and affectionate, the Italian
equivalent of ‘Hello’ – the greeting used by family members and friends.

Whilst still on the theme of informality, the
Pope recently posed with three young people who wanted a group photo with him
using a mobile phone, making himself the first-ever Bishop of Rome to make a
‘selfie’. Little imagination is needed to imagine the many hundreds of times
that photograph will be shared with others! Yet, at the same time, by his
simple and spontaneous gesture, he gave three young people a “Wow!” moment
which created an unforgettable moment of intimate personal involvement with the
Church.

An Argentinean woman recently wrote to the Pope
in despair after being raped by a policeman in Cordoba. The mother of six
children and foster mother of six others, three of whom “have disabilities”, Alejandra
Pereyra found her children repeatedly hassled after she tried to report an
incident of police harassment. In her letter to Pope Francis, Alejandra told
her story: “With all the pain I carry in my heart dear Holy Father, I ask you
for your help because after all the talk of rape, they finally did it. One
night in September 2008, around midnight, a police car turned up at our house
and a policeman who presented himself as Police Chief Sergio Braccamonte, got
out.” Mr. Braccamonte asked her to follow him to the police station but instead
drove her to an isolated place “where he pointed a service pistol at my head
and raped me.”

“When I heard the Pope's voice I felt like being
touched by God", Alejandra commented shortly afterwards. "He restored
faith and peace in me and gave me strength to carry on fighting." In that
one conversation, Pope Francis offered love, hope and healing, not only to one
suffering family, but also to the many thousands of rape victims across the
world, degraded and traumatised by the lust of others.

Yet he has not only reached out to the suffering.
Leandro Martins, a Brazilian cyclist on a 2,300 mile ride wrote to him: "I
know I am not an important person, a Head of State, an authority or even a
Catholic, but maybe I am also a sheep of God (or at least a neighbour of the
Pope) and that makes me feel that if I believe from the bottom of my heart that
it is possible, it really van happen. As everything I got in life, as this trip
that was a huge impossible dream, but now it is happening. So I thought: why
not try?" – and Francis met Leandro, chatted with him and signed the cyclist's Brazilian flag.

He wrote a thank you letter to Fr James Martin SJ
when the priest sent him Spanish translations of his books, autographed a
child’s plaster cast on her broken leg, gave a young man with Downs Syndrome a
ride on the swivel seat in the Popemobile... It really does not take much to
make a person feel special. The Pope has the gifts of intuition, compassion and
spontaneity. He does not consider himself too important to pick up the
telephone and chat to someone. This is what he meant by advising the bishops to
become ‘shepherds who smell like their sheep’. By means of such simple
gestures, he proclaims God’s Gospel of love from the rooftops, even to those
who had thought themselves deaf to such a message.

Monday, 9 September 2013

No wonder prisoners in Guantanamo
Bay complained of music torture in 2008! One report declared that the same five
pieces of music blared relentlessly through the loudspeakers strategically
placed around the detention facility. Apparently it was not the volume which
caused the problem as much as the unending monotony of the selection which
nearly drove inmates crazy.

As a result of Clapham’s August
Bank Holiday weekend, perhaps the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay had little cause
for objecting. Perhaps the music festival on the Common and the fairground less
than 100 yards away both kept their sound levels within legal limits. To
residents, the noise from one music festival plus one fairground still meant
double the overall volume of disturbance.

Three days of a constant
rhythmical pounding of drums (no music could be heard above them), from 11.00am
until 10.00pm quickly had more than nuisance value. Windows rattled. Doors
shook – and still the seemingly endless din continued. Double glazed windows
offered no protection. Earplugs did not work. Complaints had little effect. As
a result of raising grievances, music festival event organisers sent a
technician to measure their own sound levels to ensure compliance with
legislation. “It’s not us. It’s them”... and he left, happily justified that he
had done his job. The fairground? A group of men shrugged their shoulders. They
could not see what the trouble was: without loud music, who would know that
there was a fair as well as a music festival?

Meanwhile local residents felt
trapped, the sick and the housebound more so than the mobile, some of whom,
driven from their homes, became refugees beyond the Clapham boundaries and the
constant noise. Others, their weekend spoiled by others’ thoughtlessness, waited
longingly for that blissful moment when, at 10.00pm, blaring loudspeakers at
last became silent.

Yet the thoughtlessness of the
few against the many did not only affect Clapham residents and their aching
eardrums. Elsewhere the lack of consideration and thinking ahead led to
generous individuals risking their lives to rescue unnecessary victims. In one
of its busiest summers on record, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution
(RNLI) said that, this summer, the number of rescues performed by its
courageous and unpaid volunteers has increased by more than one-third over
those of 2012. The Newhaven lifeboat recently reported fourteen launches in a
single month. This summer has also witnessed the tragic heroism of rescuers who
lost their lives in saving others. A fisherman who worked on trawlers in the
North Sea once remarked, “We know the sea and are afraid of it”. Often, the
emergencies have been entirely avoidable, but, yet again, people just did not
think ahead or listen to advice. As the proverb declares, ‘Fools rush in where
angels fear to tread’.

A man recently needed the
services of a North Wales Mountain Rescue team because, by way of a change, he
wanted to climb a mountain in Snowdonia by night. Close to the summit, he
discovered that he carried the wrong map of the area and felt vulnerable on
finding that he did not know his way in the dark. On a mild, starry night and
in no immediate danger, why did he not simply wait until dawn, when he would
see a well-marked path, trodden annually by countless thousands of visitors?
Why summon the search and rescue helicopter?

There are the genuine emergencies
which happen when ill-equipped and inexperienced individuals suddenly become
selectively deaf, ignoring expert advice not to climb, walk the fells or sail
in the prevailing weather conditions. There are those who always carry an
umbrella “in case it rains”. Yet, as soon as they see a blade of grass and the
open countryside, they seem to believe that suitable footwear and clothing are
unnecessary. Sooner or later, they are surprised to find themselves stranded,
perhaps seriously injured or in a life-threatening situation and call for help.
Many rescuers must have thought, “If only you had listened to my warning in the
first place, this never would have happened”.

People always find it easier to
point the finger at someone else rather than to accept responsibility for
wrongdoing. All of us can make excuses. Children are experts. Somehow all sorts
of things happen “just like that”. The difficulty is that some people do not
grow up. What happens when the matter is serious and many lives are at stake?

The news at present is filled
with constant reports from Syria and Egypt. In Syria, first of all the
Government and then the opposition blamed each other for appalling bloodshed,
violence and devastation. The air is filled with cries of, “I didn’t do it. He
did!” That is the sort of blame game to be expected of small children, not of
grown adults and so-called Heads of State. It is far more serious when the
mutual shifting of responsibility surrounds the use of chemical weapons with
thousands of casualties and hundreds of deaths. The many innocent victims are
helpless in the face of the overwhelming lust for power of the few.

It is easy to see the horrors
perpetrated at a distance and to be unaware of those closer to home. The
time-wasting 999 call might divert emergency services from a genuine emergency
when a rapid response means the difference between life and death. On one
occasion, an emergency control room received a trivial 999 call about poor
restaurant service at the same time as a witness reported a hit and run
accident involving a young child. At least three times this week in London, someone
has committed suicide in front of a moving train: how many were facilitated by
the thoughtlessness, selfishness and perhaps undisguised cruelty of others?

Pope Francis, when he visited the
shanty town in Rio de Janeiro pointed out that giving "bread to the
hungry," while required by justice, is not enough for human happiness.
Thoughtlessness and selfishness need to be replaced by consideration. A
policeman complained as he returned from a major road accident with multiple
fatalities, “People enjoy the speed and the added danger of swerving around
corners and between lines of traffic. They forget that I am the one who has to
deal with the immediate consequences. I am the one who helps to pick body parts
off the road. I am the one who has to go to the family and break the news. I am
the one to go home to my family and cannot let the traumas of my day overflow
onto my wife and children. People see that I am a policeman, but they forget
that I am also a human being, a husband and a father.”

In The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley, Mrs Be-Done-By-As-You-Did was
a stern, inflexible woman who taught the babies that if they did not like someone’s
behaviour, then it is best not to imitate it and inflict those same actions on someone
else. If I believe that I deserve respect and consideration, then I must
respect and consider others, however difficult or inconvenient that might be.
Clapham’s weekend of music torture might seem trivial to some. The same cannot
be said of the emergency service personnel who risked their own lives to save
the thoughtless.